RV clubs and saving money

The only ones I belong to are Good Sam and KOA. They have paid for themselves.

Passport america, at $40 or so, pays for itself within a night or two. We saved almost $1000 last year, but we full time. There are restrictions, especially at popular tourist areas, but overall it offers the most "bang for your buck."

Passport America X2. Some of their properties are very nice, places I would choose anyway with great ratings, and you can cover your PA annual fee fast.

Some of their properties are not so great, but if you only need an overnight to sleep, they're a bargain at half price.

Before you decide, make sure you know what you are getting, otherwise you will spend money on something you never use.

I agree with OP that KOAs are overrated and overpriced, but if they suit you, a membership could be worthwhile.

I found Passport America a good enough value that I signed up for ten years to get a substantial discount. But you should understand that there are many different kinds of member parks. Some are residential parks that set aside a few spots for RVs, and some are resorts, but probably will not give you the discount on weekends, or during their peak season.

Good Sam on the other hand is a completely different animal. You only get about a 10% discount, but you get the peace of mind that someone from Good Sam has inspected the park, and a reasonable quality can usually be assured. In addition you can get discounts at Camping World, and other places.

If you are over 62, you should get the Park Service All Access pass which gives you 50% on NPS and COE campsites. It is $10 for life.

We joined Passport America for a year to check it out but we couldn't find enough participating places that we could use that it never really worked out. If you stay in a participating park it can work out well, but there weren't any where we went. We would have had to go out of our way to find any, and a couple that we did come across weren't someplace we wanted to stay very badly.

KOA works but you discovered the downside: they're high to begin with. Good Sam works, and the discount is honored at lots of campgrounds.

Joined them ALL when I started out.

Now the ONLY one I have is KOA.

With Passport America you REALLY have to read each CG 'website'. Maybe with long term way in advance planning you can glean a discount from them. But I never could in all my years full timing. Discounts were only on certain days the third Tuesday of the 8th month or when there was an eclipse of the sun, etc etc. The'exclusions' were endless. And most listed, when you went to call them they tell you Oh we stopped offering that 5 years ago. :R

Good Sam
Campgrounds listed with GS and a GS sign out front,...only to find out when you pull in they too said we don't belong to Good Sam anymore. And the best one is when you pull in and flip your GS card out and the owner tells you Oh, the discount is already 'built in the rate' Yea right. :R

KOA
IMHO the only CG that has standards and consistency across the US. Clean and I know what I am going to be pulling into late a night. No surprises.
AND if you have dogs they are VERY dog friendly. Unlike many other CG's.

Full timing on the road and Time and time again pulling into subpar CG's, dirty CG's etc I finally decided to exclusively stay only KOA CG's. :C

I have Passport America and KOA. Passport America is great for full timers and retirees but may not work for weekend campers because of the restrictions. And I agree with the above poster that while KOA is expensive, you generally get a quality campground.

RRinNFla wrote:
If you are over 62, you should get the Park Service All Access pass which gives you 50% on NPS and COE campsites. It is $10 for life.

I believe this should be the America the Beautiful pass which is the best deal going. Oh yeah, FREE to vets.

luvmydogs wrote:
I'm torm on what memberships to buy that would actually save money. Last year I have to say I joined KOA to save money on there parks but found consistantly that the KOA's were much more than anything else, therefore joining was money down the tubes. We did have Good Sams and I think it saved money, but sceptical now. So I ask all you RV'ers, if I want to save money on nightly rates which club or clubs are worth the bang for your buck?

We don't know enough about how your travel, what your campground requirements are to give you solid advice. We have:

1) Good Sam Membership - almost never use it for campgrounds. It is because we get the GS price at Camping World, and we very much enjoy being part of a GS group, attending state rallies. We were at the state rallies in Maine, New Hampshire & Georgia last year. We will be at Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas in the next month.

2) Passport America - we stay at PA parks only two or three times a year. Maybe 10-15 nights at most. That pays for the membership.

3) Escapees - we belong mainly for the mail service for full-timers. But we often find a park which has a 10% Good Sam discount will have a 15% Escapees discount - and not accept Passport America.

4) We are over age 62 and have the Federal Senior Pass. Since we really like the look/ feel of COE and other federal campgrounds vice the RV park feel of most commercial campgrounds - that works for us. Of course - relatively few of those CG have sewer connections, and some will not have water at the campsite. Had to string together 125 feet of water hose to refill the TT freshwater tank at a Pennsylvania CG last October.

We bought KOA one year, but plans changed and we never stayed at a KOA park.

There are also membership camping programs. If you are going to stay mainly in one area/ region - those might work for you.

In 2015 we spent 186 nights in paid campgrounds, 179 nights as volunteers. Of those 186 nights our average cost was $19.95 per night.

We spent:
58 nights in parks where the Senior Pass gave us 1/2 price camping - avg cost $14.94 per night;
55 nights in military base campgrounds (retired Navy) avg $22.47 per night;
13 nights at State/ City/ County Parks - avg $36.60 per night (Fort Lauderdale was expensive);
8 nights in Passport America parks - avg $21.35;
8 nights camping with Good Sam chapters - avg $24.00 per night;
3 nights in an Escapees' owned park - $23.98 per night;
9 nights at State Rallies - $20.78 per night;
32 nights in commercial campgrounds with no discounts - avg $16.13 per night - however that is misleading because one month of that - 29 nights - was at a monthly rate of $450.00.

Our 2014 average of $41.88 per night for commercial campgrounds was more realistic.

garmp1 wrote:

RRinNFla wrote:
If you are over 62, you should get the Park Service All Access pass which gives you 50% on NPS and COE campsites. It is $10 for life.

I believe this should be the America the Beautiful pass which is the best deal going. Oh yeah, FREE to vets.

Note there are two separate types of passes.

The Annual Pass; the Military Annual Pass; the Fourth Grade Annual Pass and the Volunteer Pass are for DAY USE and ENTRANCE Fees only. They do not include any camping discounts.

The only two camping discounts are for the Senior Pass (age 62 and older) and Access Pass for permanently disabled persons. Both of those are only available to US citizens or permanent residents.

We used public parks the majority of time but if we need a hookup we used our Passport America. Two nights will pay for the yearly membership. We didn't find it inconvenient at all to go by their restrictions. We also found that if the park wasn't busy they let us stay additional time using the discount.